Using Myth to Power Your Story

This delightful workshop covers how you can use the myths and fairy tales that link us all to give your story more oomph. Get ready to laugh while you learn, because the speaker is a natural storyteller and a witty observer of life. Whether you're creating a screenplay, a novel, a play, a computer game, a puppet show, or just an entry in your journal, your story will be richer, it will touch more people, and it will have more meaning and depth after you listen to Chris Vogler's talk.

Screenwriting for Hollywood

With the expert guidance of screenplay consultant, story editor, and teacher Michael Hauge, you'll learn how to elicit emotion (your primary goal), create strong characters, structure your stories, and conquer the business side of Hollywood. Plus, you'll get groundbreaking information on "feminine mode" movies, a unique approach to character growth and guidance on your life as a screenwriter.

William Bernhardt explains the essential elements of breakout books, stories that reel in readers and attract serious attention. He discusses all the essential elements: originality, high stakes, believability, inescapable conflict, emotional appeal, and others. Plus, in the final chapter, Bernhardt explains how to turn your powerful premise into a winning pitch to attract agents and editors.

Even the most unique and interesting characters will not engage readers if their journey - the plot - fails. In this audiobook, best-selling author William Bernhardt reveals the secrets that will keep readers riveted to the page. He explains the importance of matching character to plot and the key distinction between surprise and coincidence. Bernhardt discusses how to enrich your story by layering three levels of conflict and, in the final chapter, analyzes the primary plot structures that delight readers.

Dynamic Dialogue: Letting Your Story Speak (Red Sneaker Writers Book)

Dynamic dialogue can turn an otherwise ordinary novel into a delightful read, but dull, uninspired dialogue will cause readers to lose interest and try something else. In this book, bestselling author William Bernhardt, renowned for his handling of dialogue, explains his techniques for making characters come to life through their words. He explains the importance of matching character and dialogue, of avoiding dialogue that's “on-the-nose,” and the value of using dialogue to suggest what no one will say aloud.

Story Structure: The Key to Successful Fiction: The Red Sneaker Writers Book Series, Volume 1

"Writing is structure,” William Goldman said, but too often aspiring writers plunge into their work without grasping this fundamental principle. Story structure is one of the most important concepts for a writer to understand - and ironically, one of the least frequently taught. In this book, New York Times best-selling author William Bernhardt explains the elements that make stories work, using examples spanning from Gilgamesh to The Hunger Games.

All fiction is character-driven, according to William Bernhardt, despite what you might have heard elsewhere. If your characters don’t interest readers, even the most exciting plots will fail. “Action is character,” Aristotle wrote, but what does that mean, and how can you use that fundamental principle to create dynamic fiction that will captivate readers? This audiobook explains the relationship between character and plot, and how the perfect melding of the two produces a mesmerizing story.

Rock Your Plot: A Simple System for Plotting Your Novel

Are you stuck trying to write a novel? This audiobook goes straight to the point, putting theory in plain language, adding examples from blockbuster stories, and finishing each section with exercises designed to help you work with your characters to write a novel that excites you and your readers.

Sizzling Style: Every Word Matters

Too often aspiring writers are frustrated by rejection, not realizing that the problem is not the story but the way they are telling it. In this audiobook, best-selling author William Bernhardt brings his down-to-earth approach to the subject of style, revealing everything you need to know to write with the art and craft of a seasoned professional. Bernhardt goes beyond memorizing rules to a fresh approach, a philosophy of writing that will transform your work and take it to a higher level.

Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story

Why do some stories work and others don't? The answer is structure. In this IPPY and NIEA Award-winning guide from the author of the bestselling Outlining Your Novel, you will discover the universal underpinnings that guarantee powerful plot and character arcs. An understanding of proper story and scene structure will help you to not only perfectly time your story's major events, but will also provide you with an unerring standard to use in evaluating your novel's pacing and progression.

Finish the Script!: A College Screenwriting Course in Book Form

Finish The Script! is a screenwriting audiobook for anyone who wants to be a writer. It takes a step-by-step approach and focuses not only on theory but also on the actual writing process. It's a full college course squeezed into audiobook form that will take novice writers from concept through rewrite. Based on actual class lectures and assignments, Finish the Script! is for any writer looking for that extra push and guidance.

How to Write a Screenplay That Doesn't Suck and Will Actually Sell: ScriptBully Book Series

There are nearly 50,000 screenplays registered with the Writer’s Guild every year. And 99 percent of them suck. But they don’t have to. That’s why I decided to write this book. So before you head out to another hundred-dollar screenwriting conference to learn how to write a screenplay or buy another paint-by-the-numbers 3-act script formula give my book a try. I can’t guarantee you’ll sell your script.

Do you feel overwhelmed trying to revise your novel? Faced with a hot mess of rough draft, maybe you feel confused, unsure of what to fix - or rather, what to fix first! Editing fiction takes a slightly different mindset than writing the first rough pass of a novel. There are a lot of moving parts in a work of fiction. The trick is to not try and tackle everything at once. Rock Your Revisions: A Simple System for Revising Your Novel will show you a clear, easy-to-follow process for editing a novel.

Writing the Blockbuster Novel

Every novelist dreams of it - writing the book that rockets to the top of the best-seller lists. Now, they can see how it's done, up close, in an audiobook by an agent who has sold manuscripts that turned into hits. Here Albert Zuckerman covers the essential elements of the blockbuster novel and shows writers how to put them to work in their books. Zuckerman covers the subject thoroughly, from creating outlines and building larger than life characters to injecting suspense and more.

Million Dollar Outlines

In this audiobook, Dave teaches how to analyze an audience and outline a novel so that it can appeal to a wide readership, giving it the potential to become a bestseller. The secrets found in his unconventional approach will help you understand why so many of his authors go on to prominence.

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success

Let outlines help you write a better book! Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer's arsenal.

Publisher's Summary

Make your story the best it can be on two levels. Hear each superstar teacher present his unique approach to story telling.

The "Outer Journey" is the essential structural principles driving every successful plot. Each brings years of practical experience and extensive research to story structure, character arc, and how to give your story greater commercial appeal. Full of specific examples.

The "Inner Journey" is the deeper storyline that makes a story truly great. Hauge's view: The Hero moves from hiding within a protective identity to experiencing his or her true essence. Vogler's view: The Hero's inner need is invisible at first, but is revealed to the Hero by the end of the story. Full of specific examples.

This is ideal listening for all writers (including screenwriters, novelists, and playwrights), actors, filmmakers, studio executives, game designers and developers, storytellers, and anyone with a passion for movies and stories.

The audience is screenwriters, but the ideas are excellent and valuable for novelists.

Christopher Vogler and Michael Hauge conducted a workshop for writing movie scripts based on Joseph Campbell’s work. This is the recording of that workshop which includes some questions from the audience.

I rarely watch movies. My feeling is why watch a movie when I could read a book? Books have more depth. When I see movies based on books I’ve read, I’m disappointed although I do enjoy the visuals. As I listened to this lecture, I felt further reluctance to watch movies. They’re all made with the same formula! (or most of them) The first 10% is seeing the ordinary world and the call to action. Other parts include meeting the mentor, encountering tests, the supreme ordeal, and return with the elixir. These parts were first defined by Joseph Campbell. He studied mythology and found consistency in all myths in all cultures. Apparently all humans always want the same story.

During the 1970s George Lucas used these ideas when he wrote the first Star Wars movie. During the 1980s Christopher Vogler wrote a memo organizing Campbell’s ideas into guidance for movie making. Vogler worked for Disney at the time. Vogler later turned his memo into a book “The Writer’s Journey.” I was bothered by Vogler’s claim for credit. He talked as if he were “the first one” to consider using Campbell’s ideas for movie making. He never mentioned that Lucas used them earlier. On Vogler’s website (mentioned below) he states “I had discovered the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell a few years earlier while studying cinema at the University of Southern California. I was sure I saw Campbells ideas being put to work in the first of the Star Wars movies and wrote a term paper for a class in which I attempted to identify the mythic patterns that made that film such a huge success.” This rubs me wrong. Lucas clearly stated that he used Campbell’s work when he wrote Star Wars. Vogler’s comments are pompous. My distaste is the reason I did not give this 5 stars. But the subject matter is excellent. Most of the examples are from three films: The Firm, Shrek, and Titanic. I was surprised that the speakers didn’t use Star Wars as an example.

This audiobook is a good way to learn about Campbell’s ideas. The authors talk about the hero’s outer journey, his inner journey, and major character types. Hauge defines four character types: hero, reflection (friend), nemesis, and romance character (or the object of hero’s pursuit). Vogler’s website (thewritersjourney com) has a helpful summary of the outer journey and eight character types. (My thoughts, not in the lecture: Since all plots are the same, it is critical to have unique, engaging, and fascinating characters. This seminar does not discuss that.)

A couple of Hauge comments. The inner journey is to find your essence. At the end of the workshop, Hauge summarizes with three arcs that consistently occur in American movies - three transformations the character needs to make.1. risk being who you truly are2. risk connecting to other people (romantically or other)3. stand up and do what is right, the honest thing, to stand up for the truth.He says “love encompasses all of these. All great movies are love stories.”

Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler have been perfecting their screenwriting methodologies for many years... This is the first time, that i know of, where they have combined their systems... Giving you two expert perspectives...

There are many books on screenwriting out there... This is one of the best... relatively simple explanations of the basic and advanced principles of writing stories for film. This book does not cover formatting, but story development...

If you've got an idea for a moive... but aren't sure... this book will help you find out...

I give this a 2-star rating based on a parochial level of story analysis that can be found in any screenwriting basic-structure how-to manual. That being said, you do need to start somewhere and this could be helpful, but it is limited in examples and expanded explanations of approach, theory, and context. It also loses a star because the audio quality is almost unbearable, very poorly recorded. Vogler and Hauge are great at what they do, though.

This mini books captures two great teachers and like Vogler's Using Myth, I took notes all the way through. If you are learning to write fiction, run, don't walk, to get your copy. Kudos Audible and please do more of these as many of us can't get out to the conferences.

This is a great read for anybody who loves writing fiction. The lessons apply specifically to play/script writing, but can effortlessly be applied to any kind of story, no matter the scope. I would recomend this (and I have) to anyone who has an interest of writing any kind of fiction work. Period.

I loved this. I've listened to it over and over. I'm a producer. When I work with a writer, and I can't figure out what it is that's missing, I listen to this again with the particular script in mind. It helps me recognize where we can improve the story.

This is a great book for any writer, director or storyteller of any kind. If you are serious about making meaningful stories, you need this.

Both Vogler and Hauge are Grand Masters in this genre but this book/lecture is short and doesn't teach you anything that you won't already know from creative writing classes. However, they do get you thinking and give you a good overview of their two story-writing ideas, which are reasonably similar. Like I said, they are both Grand Masters in their world.

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